Abigail Spanberger is calling on the University of Virginia to pause its search for a new president.
The incoming Democratic governor sent the school’s rector and vice rector a letter saying as much Wednesday, almost exactly three months after UVa President Jim Ryan resigned under pressure from the Trump administration over his handling of diversity policies and more than two months before Spanberger is to be sworn in as the commonwealth’s 75th governor.
“The search for a university president is the most consequential action a university board can undertake, and in all cases, such a search must be conducted through a legitimate and transparent process,” the governor-elect, herself a UVa alumna, wrote in her letter to Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson. “I urge you to refrain from rushing this search process and from selecting the finalists for the presidency or a president until the Board is at full complement and in statutory compliance.”
Spanberger said waiting to select a new president until a full board is seated would provide credibility to the search process, ensure that the next president benefits from having been chosen in a credible and transparent process, and remove any concern that the board’s actions are illegitimate due to a lack of authority.
The letter arrives the week after the 28-strong presidential search committee at UVa announced it is beginning the process of narrowing the field of 60 candidates to just a handful, with in-person interviews scheduled for later this month.
Spanberger wrote that five of the 17 members who sit on UVa’s governing Board of Visitors still have not been sworn in, making the board’s legitimacy, and the legitimacy of any decisions it makes, questionable.
“The Board is not fully constituted and its composition is now in violation of statutory requirements in crucial respects, further calling into question the legitimacy of the Board and its actions,” she wrote.
University spokeswoman Bethanie Glover told The Daily Progress “University leaders and the Board of Visitors are reviewing the letter and are ready to engage with the Governor-elect and to work alongside her and her team to advance the best interests of UVA and the Commonwealth.”
Neither outgoing Gov. Glenn Youngkin or Attorney General Jason Miyares, both Republicans, immediately responded to a Daily Progress inquiry regarding the legality of Spanberger’s ask or their personal takes on it.
In the meantime, Paul Mahoney, a UVa law professor, has been serving as acting president since Ryan’s departure.
The process of how individuals are appointed to Virginia’s college boards has come under a microscope this year after Democrats on a state Senate committee rejected Youngkin’s latest slate of appointments to UVa, George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute.
The governor of Virginia appoints members to college boards for four-year terms. The appointments are staggered throughout the governor’s own four years in office, so that by the end of the governor’s single term, the boards are, ostensibly, fully appointed by the last governor before the next one takes office. Appointments must be confirmed by lawmakers in the General Assembly, though board members have traditionally taken their seats beforehand as they await approval.
The Democrats who rejected Youngkin’s appointments this year say their nay votes mean Youngkin’s appointments cannot be seated, but Youngkin and Miyares have argued that only a full General Assembly, and not a single committee, can make such a decision.
A Fairfax County judge sided with Democrats and suspended the appointments, but Miyares has appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court.
In the meantime, Democratic lawmakers and Spanberger have promised to make changes to the way college board appointments are made in the legislative session at the start of next year.
Republicans have expressed concern that Spanberger intends to not only replace Youngkin’s latest appointments who have not been sworn in, but also fire and replace his past appointments to college boards.
Adding fuel to that fire of speculation, Spanberger told UVa’s rector and vice rector in her letter: “It will be a priority of my administration to stabilize and normalize the leadership of our public colleges and universities, I will make appointments soon after my inauguration.”
There is recent precedent for a governor to remove a college board member. Youngkin fired one of his own appointments to UVa’s board, Bert Ellis, who was an outspoken and often combative critic of Ryan and his administration.
In announcing his decision, Youngkin cited a Virginia law that gives the governor the power to remove any member of a governing board for “malfeasance, misfeasance, incompetence, or gross neglect of duty.” The law also requires the governor, upon removing a board member, to publicly state his reasoning for doing so.
Ellis was fired days after telling The Daily Progress “every aspect of DEI is to be ripped out, shredded and terminated” at UVa.
After his departure, Youngkin appointed Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and former acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, to fill his seat. Cuccinelli is among those whose appointments have been suspended.
Spanberger’s words on the legitimacy of UVa’s board echo those made by past and present students, faculty and staff.
More than 140 retired faculty members, the school’s General Faculty Council, Faculty Senate and Student Council all formally issued votes of no confidence in the board following Ryan’s resignation.
“I’m concerned that it lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the faculty and the staff, and that that is going to set up the next president for failure,” Ian Mullins, a sociology professor and member of the UVa chapter of the United Campus Workers Virginia, said of the presidential search committee to The Daily Progress back in August.
Spanberger said it is her intention to restore confidence in the board once she takes office.
“It will be a priority of my administration to stabilize and normalize the leadership of our public colleges and universities, I will make appointments soon after my inauguration,” she wrote.
Spanberger has for months been critical of government interference in UVa decision-making, specifically the Trump administration’s involvement in Ryan’s departure and the Youngkin-dominated board’s ignorance or compliance in the matter.
“We had a board that was willing to just stand by while attack after attack came, and we have a system that doesn’t allow the university to either defend itself with its own attorneys, or frankly even bring in outside counsel. And so there is a real clear need to make some fortifications in the system,” she said while speaking at UVa back in September.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com